Battle For The Boulevard

But because Fort Lauderdale`s Las Olas Boulevard is no mean street, you can`t say they`re pulling on the boxing mitts, though you can say they`ve shed the white gloves.

At odds: a slew of sniping merchants who can`t agree on what Las Olas Boulevard is all about. At stake: the future of a palm-lined, tradition-laden street, an important and irreplaceable part of Fort Lauderdale`s past.

Unlike other shopping areas in South Florida -- where it`s roll out a slab of concrete, bring in the chain stores, throw in a food court and, boom, instant commerce -- Las Olas is different.

Las Olas has a history.

For decades, its small boutiques catered to the well-heeled. But then the malls came, the people went west and the street was left to struggle and the merchants to scrap.

Those merchants have broken into two distinct camps: those who want the street the way it once was and those who say it needs a healthy dose of promotion or it will perish.

``I say if they want all that hoo-ha stuff, go to a mall,`` says Virginia Schuster of The Chemist Shop, an upscale drugstore that has been a Las Olas fixture for nearly 35 years. ``Things need to be done in a certain way here -- conservatively. We don`t need a carnival atmosphere.``

It`s true that some established shop owners say business is fine and they don`t need to alter their merchandise or lower their prices to keep the same quality customer they`ve courted for years.

It`s also true that the street has stores that come and go so quickly they`re out of business before the phone book is out of date.

And so it happens that newer merchants want more razzle-dazzle to focus attention on a street where understated elegance has been the pervasive theme.

Therein lies the problem.

``Trying to get anything changed around here is like pulling teeth,`` says Laurie Clark, whose Apropos art gallery is a struggling 3-year-old. ``We need to drag some of these people into the 20th century, now that it`s almost over.``

What the ``new people`` want is whatever will bring people into their shops and put dollars in their pockets. Longer hours, for instance (which some store owners already keep), so working people can shop evenings.

``Traditionally, shops close at 5 or 5:30,`` says Kitty Ryan, owner of O`Hara`s Pub and a three-year veteran of the street. ``It`s quaint and it`s charming. But it`s an anachronism.``

And they want festivals that will pull people downtown instead of scattering them among the malls.

That`s why, when the Museum of Art announced last week that it wanted to move the annual Las Olas Art Festival closer to the museum, several merchants cried foul. Now they`re pressing the city to keep the festival where it has been for 21 years: in front of their stores.

In a brief show of unity, most merchants appear to want that festival on their home turf, for good reason. Widely respected, it brings in top artists and big dollars. Equally important, it`s a Las Olas tradition.

It`s the other, not-quite-so-highfalutin festivals -- some endorsed by the Las Olas Merchants Association, others apparently not -- that are causing the sniping among shop owners.

To be fair, even members of the pro-festival faction roll their eyes over flops of the past. Like last year`s Hispanic Festival. ``Not because we don`t like Hispanics,`` says one merchant. ``But they brought in their trinkets and their own food and beer trucks and we didn`t do any business.`` And a parade a while back of marching kazoo tooters reminded one merchant of a defeated battalion from the Civil War -- hardly the desired effect.

FROM THE OLD GUARD

Still, the pro-festival faction says that warm bodies on the street are better than no bodies, that festivals produce customers and give shops exposure.

``I don`t care what they put on the street; anything that might bring in new people is fine,`` says Andrea O`Brien, whose Lounge Lizards store is full of contemporary, colorful clothes that go better with leather than pearls. ``I`m all for people coming through the door.``

Counterpoint: The anti faction says festivals only clog the streets, flood the parking lots and bring in the masses -- not the monied.

``If these new businesses last long enough, they see that all the things they want to do don`t work,`` says Schuster of The Chemist Shop, where Fort Lauderdale`s Old Guard power brokers still meet for breakfast. ``They don`t want to listen to the old folks on the street, to the voice of experience.``

Schuster says she and her husband tried the longer hours and lost money. And when it comes to festivals, she`s only one voice in a chorus that says a multitude of festivals means a multitude of problems.